Working at The Ithacan, Ithaca College's weekly student newspaper, has been a defining experience for many of our alumni. The Ithacan Alumni blog is a response to their desire to stay connected with each other and with the paper, as well as to help bring along future generations of Ithacan students.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

The spring National College Media Convention in New York brought current Ithacan students attending the conference together with our New York–area alumni for our annual dinner at Heartland Brewery on W. 43rd St. We had a great turnout, giving our alums a chance to catch up as well as to share their wisdom and experience with their current counterparts on the editorial board.

The Ithacan was presented with a Gold Crown award by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association at the spring National College Media Convention on March 13 at the Sheraton Times Square Hotel in New York City. The Gold Crown awards are the highest honors presented by CSPA.

The award was in the “hybrid” category, described as “a publication that works to combine their digital and print publications as one.” The award was for work produced during the 2013–14 academic year (Megan Devlin ’14, editor-in-chief).

The judges’ commented that, “It’s so easy to find ‘must read’ stories in every issue of The Ithacan. The paper excels at campus news reporting on relevant topics. Substantive research and strong interviewing skills are evident throughout The Ithacan. Facts, stats, surveys, and infographics expand the coverage. Editorial leadership is evident on the ‘Opinion’ page. The tag line ‘at your fingertips’ introduces a reader-friendly digital site with diversified coverage on serious topics, such as racial inequality. The website has engaging bloggers who comment on everything from the minutiae of everyday college life to anthropomorphic advertising. Diversity is the key to The Ithacan’s success.”

The Ithacan was one of only four newspapers in the country to win the Gold Crown in the “hybrid” category. The others were the Indiana Daily Student (Indiana University), The Iowa State Daily (Iowa State University) and the Rocky Mountain Collegian (Colorado State University).

From left, Hess, Quigley, Denning,Beck and Shanklin with the latestApple in The Ithacan’s orchard.

In addition, The Ithacan took the First Place Apple Award for Best Tweet and Third Place for Best Homepage in the convention’s on-site Best of Show awards at the March 14 closing session.

Founded in 1925, the CSPA is owned by Columbia University and operated as a program affiliated with its Graduate School of Journalism. The Crown Awards, first presented in 1982, are the organization's highest recognition of overall excellence.

The Ithacan has been named a Gold Medalist for the 2013–14 academic year in the Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s annual college newspaper critique.Among the judge’s comments, “Congratulations on publishing an outstanding print and digital newspaper and your Gold Medalist and All Columbian honors. You entertain, inform, practice enterprise journalism and serve as a student forum, all in an exceptional manner.”Each year the CSPA evaluates member papers on overall content, news, depth reporting, features, opinion/editorial, sports, arts/entertainment, editing/headline writing, and design/graphics based on more than 150 specific criteria. This year the paper scored 963 on the critique’s 1,000-point scale. The CSPA consistently ranks The Ithacan as a Gold Medalist, its highest category. All Columbian Honors are given within a scorebook section when the sectional total reaches 95% or more of the possible points.

Five Ithacan students have been honored with 2014 Gold Circle Awards in the Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s annual competition honoring work by individuals in collegiate publications. The 2014 awards are for work produced during the 2013–14 academic year. The individuals honored were:

Jennifer Williams ’16, Second Place for Single Feature Photograph for “Here Comes the Sun” (The Ithacan, April 3, 2014)